Kansas Town Closes Cop Shop To Save Money
Nickerson could save a third of its budget and ease pressure on taxpayers
In a move to relieve pressure on the city budget, the Nickerson City Council voted 4-3 Monday evening to close the town's police department.
Voters in Nickerson, a central Kansas farming community, will get the chance during city elections in April to ratify or reject that decision. Reopening the department, with two full-time and seven part-time officers — as recommended by a former police chief — "will add three or four mills to our property taxes," predicts Mayor Jim Gladden.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
According to Wikipedia, the place has a population of 1,000.
Here in MIssouri, most little towns don't have police forces, unless they are running a protection racket (aka speed trap). There are county police